Creating a multilingual test-bed for a cross-language system evaluation

The aim of the Cross-Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF) is to develop and maintain an infrastructure for the evaluation of information retrieval system operating on European languages in both monolingual and cross-language contexts, and to create test-suites of reusable data that can be employed by system developers for benchmarking purposes. The paper discusses the criteria that have been followed in the creation of the multilingual test-bed and provides information on the evaluation methodology adopted and the actual contents of the test collection